Butterfly-Inspired Triboelectric Nanogenerators with Spring-Assisted Linkage Structure for Water Wave Energy Harvesting

The exploration of water wave energy to generate electric power is a promising and valuable way to solve global energy crisis. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are considered as one of the most promising approaches for harvesting water wave energy. Here, a butterfly-inspired triboelectric nanogenerator (B-TENG) with spring-assisted four-bar linkage is fabricated to acquire multidirectional water wave energy from different types of movements generated by the device. The arc-shaped outer shell can efficiently absorb the impact force of water wave and inner spring-assisted four-bar linkage can induce multiple contact-separation motion of TENG module, both of which allow the B-TENG to harvest energy from different types of low-frequency waves. The short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage of this B-TENG device can reach 75.35 mu A and 707.01 V, while a maximum output power density of 9.559 W m(-3) can be achieved and 180 light-emitting diodes can be directly lightened up by this B-TENG. The energy generated from this B-TENG can also be stored in a capacitor and to drive some marine sensor devices, such as an electronic thermometer. This proposed B-TENG device is specially designed for multidirectional water energy harvesting and it may have good application prospects for ocean information monitoring and power supply to oceanic islands.